Elephant's Memory
by AllisonOfTheOpera
Summary: Sherlock Holmes has his hands full when heiress Clara Evangeline, who unknowingly has ties to Jim Moriarty, walks into his life and his heart. Begins in between A Study in Pink and The Blind Banker.
1. Introduction

"We forget half of what they teach us in school, but when it comes to the torment and the people who inflicted it, we've all got an elephant's memory."  
>-<em>Criminal Minds<em> 3x16, _Elephants Memory. _


	2. -1-

_"_Julie! Hurry up!" Clara Evangeline called to one of her foster children, her dark brown eyes glistening in the early morning. The little girl hopped down the stairs, straightening her plaid skirt. Clara tutted.

"Can you tuck in Julie's shirt tail, Mary-Kate? There's a dear." A sixteen-year-old girl with hauntingly dark eyes and black hair nodded blankly, tucking the back of the six year old's shirt in.

"Why do we have to go to school?" Julie complained as the butler handed her a bowl of porridge. "Ryan doesn't have to!"

"Ryan is older than you, and he _will_ be going to school." Clara replied soothingly. "Mary-Kate, can you be a dear and go make sure that Katherine and Karen-"

"GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM!" A high pitched scream sounded from three floors above.

"Too late." Mary-Kate muttered, before Clara hurried up the staircase to discipline the twin girls who were now screaming at each other over the bathroom.

"Katherine! Karen! That's enough bickering out of you!" She said, tone filled with annoyance. Both immediately turned around, placing their hands behind their backs after straightening their matching dresses.

"Hello Miss Evangeline." They said respectfully, Katherine ending her sentence a half second after Karen.

The twins looked exactly alike, identical almost down to their finger prints. They had the same blonde hair that was usually French braided back, the eyes the color of rich dark chocolate. They had the exact same eyeglass prescription, the same dental problems, and they even got sick at the exact same time.

"We didnt know you would be here this morning." Karen said cautiously. With her business dealings and appearances as a socialite, Clara was never at home as much as she liked.

"You never know when I'll show up." She replied. "However, I've a reason to be here today. I've got to escort Ryan to Oxford in about..." She glanced at her watch. "Six hours." She glanced up and smiled as the sandy haired youth hurried towards her. "Ah, heres the man of the-"

"Hi, mom." Ryan called over his shoulder as he rushed past her and into his bedroom. The door slammed behind him.

"What's the rush?" Clara muttered, escorting the twins downstairs so that they could take their places at the long table. She took her own seat and watched as her children were served breakfast.

"He probably forgot to pack something." Katherine said, digging into her chocolate chip pancakes. Soon after, Ryan came out of his room behind them, ready to eat.

"Ah, there's my beach boy" Clara said warmly, gesturing to the seat to the right of the head of the table. The nickname was a reference to his hair color; it reminded her of the beach, and so she called him her beach boy. Clara herself sat at the head, and Herbert, her butler, brought her her usual breakfast: A small omlette with cheese and chives and a small strip of bacon. She placed her napkin in her lap and smiled at her odd family.

Each of these children had some sort of a gift or a bad hand dealt by life. The twins were both very intelligently gifted; Karen had a very high IQ for a thirteen-year-old and Katherine was a math whiz. Little Julie always saw more than what others could see; she was a budding psychic. Mary-Kate and Ryan had the most similar issues; the previous year, Mary Kate had witnessed her parent's double suicide, and when Ryan was twelve he had witnessed his parent's murder.

"Good morning, Ms. Evangeline." Susan, the children's live-in psychologist, said as she came down the stairs.

"Good morning." she replied. After she sat down, Clara addressed the therapist again. "So, Susan, what are your plans for the day with our ladies?" Clara said, crossing her ankles.

"Well, after they get home from school I thought we'd go out for ice cream." Everyone's faces lit up, except for Mary-Kate, who left her near permanenet blank expression on her face. Clara almost sighed; Mary was getting better very slowly, but she was leaps and bounds behind how Ryan had recovered.

Clara thought back to when she had taken Ryan into her care; he was an average twelve year old that had just gone through a large psychological trauma. She was in emotional shambles at that point in her life; the last member of her family was dead, and she had been left Evangeline Manor and well over one billion pounds from her parent's oil fortune. She had needed somebody, and Ryan was just that. Now, they were as close as mother and son.

"Ready for Uni?" She asked almost sorrowfully.

"Almost, mum." he replied, and she grinned when he called her mum.

She was only twenty six when she had adopted him- far too young to be his biological mother- but the fact that he called her his mother anyway always made her happy. She ruffled his sand colored hair, and he returned the favor by messing up her dark waves. She couldn't exactly stop him- he was two heads taller than she was and his arms were much longer than hers. Their family breakfast ended as the antique grandfather clock struck nine.

"Oh." she said, standing and brushing any stray hairs off of her pant legs. "Make my breakfast to go, Herbert; I need to go run a few errands and speak with the CEO of BROC today to see if he'll increase our allowance." She said, and one of the maids handed Clara her purse. "Susan, get the children off to school. Ryan, I'll be back in three hours to take you to Oxford. Alright?"

"Yeah, I understand." He said, standing up to give her a hug. She pecked his cheek, and then said goodbye to the rest of the children. Susan ushered them into the coat room as Clara slipped on her expensive designer trench coat.

"If I'm not back tonight, cancel my Wednesday and Thursday appointments."

"Yes, Ms. Evangeline. Your car is waiting."

"Thank you." She said, removing a fifty pound note from her purse and setting it in his hand. "That will be all."

"Yes, Miss Evangeline."

"John!" Sherlock Holmes moaned as he flopped against his couch cushions.

"What?"

"Well, for one, don't you _dare_ throw away those phalanges. It's an experiment." John Watson rolled his eyes, setting the bowl of finger bones back into the counter.

"What could that possibly be for?"

"I'm measuring how long it takes certain household agents to break down bone." He replied. "Is there a case?"

"No, Sherlock." The army doctor said gruffly as he settled down in his chair. It was close to ten o'clock in 221B Baker street, and a certain sociopathic detective was getting very bored without a case.

"I'm sure something will turn up." John said. "Didn't you just finish that case with the Gypsy and the Old Well?"

"That was this morning!" he replied hotly. "Bored!" he shouted at the ceiling.

"_Sherlock_." John warned.

"John, would you like to be turned into a human marionette?" Sherlock asked, eyes turning excited as he sat up.

"No." John replied quicker than lightning. He open the book he had been reading earlier.

"Were out of milk again." He muttered.

"Mmm."

"We could-" a sudden buzz echoed through the flat.

"Client!" Sherlock cried joyously, jumping out of his robe as he rushed down the stairs.

"Couldn't have come too soon." John muttered as Sherlock led someone wearing heels up the stairs. When he stood up to greet the client, he almost fainted.

"Hello!" Clara called as she stepped through the front door of the mansion, kicking off her stilettos. "Ryan?" there wasn't a sound in the entire house. "Ryan!" she called. There was no answer. "Ryan David Hope-Evangeline, you'd better get down here before I come up there!" it was silent. Herbert hadn't even greeted her.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up straight. The manor was never this quiet. The kids were at school, Mary-Kate should be working with Susan, and the cleaning staff should have been working in the attic of the mansion.

To calm herself, she quickly ran up the stairs to make sure that Ryan wasn't playing around. The afternoon sun shone through the windows, illuminating the path ahead of her.

"Ryan?" she called, heading towards his room and opening the door. She stepped back in shock.

Ryan's room had been ransacked. Someone had knocked the lamp over and set it back upright, the huge bookshelf had been re organized, most likely due to someone tipping it over. The entire room seemed to be a little off. The books were slightly out of place, the furniture had been moved, certain areas of dust had been disturbed... The room looked perfectly normal, as clean as anything could get, but Clara remembered exactly where everything needed to be.

"Ryan?" She called out once more, now in full panic mode. She ran throughout the house, looking for her son. But she could find no trace. She shook as she ran to her bedroom. She quickly unstopped the brandy and poured herself a glass, throwing it back. She repeated this task before chocking back a sob. Her fingers were shaking so badly that she could barely press the right buttons on her cell phone, but eventually the call on her went through.

"999, what's your emergency?"

"Hello, Scotland Yard?"

There were many things that Clara Ecangeline, at this point, had never done.

Clara Evangeline had never gone running through the pitch black night after a murderer.

Clara Evangeline had never killed a man.

Clara Evangeline had never been afraid of her own shadow.

Clara Evangeline had never fallen in love.

_**Clara Evangeline had never met Sherlock Holmes.**_


	3. -2-

"_What do you mean you can't do anything_?" Clara said, tears streaming down her face. She held herself, trying desperately not to fall into sobs and failing miserably at it. The very slow policeman, who she had been insulting and yelling at for the past quarter of an hour, sighed.

"Ma'am, there's no evidence that Mr. Hope disappeared anywhere. Nothing seems out of place-"

"Everything is out of place!" she sobbed into her hands as she watched the forensics technicians pack their things away and load them into cars. "I know! I remember! _Nothing_ is in it's correct spot!"

"I'm sorry to tell you this, ma'am, but the boy is eighteen, and he's adopted. He probably just took off and lef-"

"No, he wouldn't do that!" she snapped at him, emotions spilling over in bitter tears. "I love my son, and I know him better than-"

"There's nothing we can do, ma'am. There's no evidence that he's missing. Go get yourself a shrink or something." He replied with annoyance, shrugging her off. She sat on the front step of the manor, looking at the CSIs as they packed up their kits.

"Are you alright?" A kind voice asked. When she looked up, a middle aged man with greying hair was standing beside her. She cataloged each of his features, including a badge that read "DI Lestrade", but the most striking thing to Clara was the warmth in his muddy brown eyes.

"No." she croaked in reply. He placed a hand gently on her shoulder, sitting next to her on the doorstep. He offered her a cigarette, but she declined. They sat in silence, until Lestrade spoke up again.

"You know that there's no evidence that he's missing."

"Yes, there is. You just havent found it yet." She snapped, wiping tears out of her eyes. Her make up and normally sleek hair were everywhere, and she looked like she hadn't slept in days. "You people are never able to pick out the minute details. Never have been." he groaned, rubbing his temples. He knew that she wasn't crazy; he'd met enough real lunatics to know. He gently turned the card in his pocket between his fingers, unsure whether he would be helping or hurting her by giving it to her.

"I can't help you." He said. Her head fell between her bent over shoulders, tears splattering on the pavement. "But I think that I know someone who can." She glanced up, almost in shock.

"Who?" He sighed, turning the slip of paper over in his fingers again.

"I'm going to regret this, I just _know it_." He said, handing her the business card from his pocket. "He's not a part of Scotland Yard, but he's the best person I know for these sorts of things. The tricky cases, the odd ones, the dangerous ones." She clutched the card to her chest.

"Thank you, _thank you_." She said, jumping to her feet. She grabbed her coat from Herbert, who had been out shopping during the disappearance. As she slung her pocketbook over her shoulder, the butler disappeared into the house. She ran down the charming cobblestone street, waving her hand and shouting, "Taxi!"

As she ran from him, Greg Lestrade shook his head in worry, horror at himself, and pity.

"My god, I'm going to regret this."

Clara clambered out of her cab, smoothing her blouse and her hair. She glanced at the card again, even though she didn't need to; the address still read 221B Baker street. This was the place.

She checked her composure, which was usually carefully constructed and well fortified, and then carefully rang the bell. She heard a muffled male shout, and then hurried footsteps. In seconds, a handsome man with curly dark hair, dressed in blue pajamas came to the door. Clara looked up at him with aprehension; he was almost a foot and a half taller than she was and those cheekbones could slice bread.

"Are you Sherlock Holmes of Baker street?" She asked almost timidly.

"I am." he replied. "May I show you inside?"

"Please." She replied. He dashed upstairs, trying desperatly to contain his excitement. She followed him slowly up to his flat, silently memorizing every nook and cranny of the wall paper on the way up.

"John, case!" Mr. Holmes said. Carla noticed a man, whose hair was greying and whose posture suggested military. She supposed that this was "John" and nodded politely as the curly haired man dashed down the hall, apparently to get dressed.

"Good god, you're Clara Evangeline!" "John" exclaimed, standing. She smiled, offered a slender hand to him, and noted a tear in his sweater that had been repaired with a horizontal mattress stitch; a surgical stuture.

"Yes, I am. And, you are?"

"John." He said. "John Watson. Tea?"

"Coffee, if you have it. Black, three sugars." She said. He nodded, and then set the kettle to boil.

"It'll only take a few minutes." he said, silently wondering why Clara Evangeline was standing in his sitting room. She had removed her black trenchcoat and revealed her black turtleneck and high waisted green skirt. Her dark, opaque nylons streched over her crossed legs and disappeared under her high heels. "So, what brings you to our doorstep?"

"Kidnapping. I think." she said shakily.

"It's not think, you _know_ that it was kidnapping." Sherlock said as he walked back into the parlor, running his hands over the front of his jacket. "Sorry, I didn't quite catch your name, I'll be needing to know it." She was a little surprised, since most people recognized her from somewhere. Then again, her face had once been plastered on the front of newspapers all over the country.

"Clara Evangeline. I'm the sole heir to the British Royal Oil Company." Recognition flashed at Sherlock from the depths of his mind palace.

"Yes, I remember your parent's case. It was very odd, since they never caught the killer, even though you were witness to the whole thing."

"Yes." she replied, shifting uncomfortably as Sherlock's eyes raked over her. "My son-"

"Adopted son." Sherlock interjected. John looked over at Sherlock with a funny look on his face.

"Adopted?"

"Obviously. She was only ten when her parents passed away in what, nineteen ninty-two?" Clara nodded in conformation. "She's old enough to have a child yes, but an adult son? Obviously adopted in his preteens, and obviously the one missing." John looked at Sherlock as if he had fish swimming between his eyebrows. Sherlock sighed. "Everyone in Britain would have heard if she'd become a mother in her teen years. Plus, if you look at the curvature of her pelvis and stomach, she clearly has not been through preganancy; there are tell tale signs in the gait and in skeletal structure. Again, obvious." John's eyes went to her lower torso and pelvic region, only to discover that Sherlock was right.

"And what about the age he was when she adopted him?"

"I'll get to that." Sherlock said with a smirk.

"So, your son has disappeared without a trace?"

"Yes." She said, their eyes locked together. "I came home this afternoon to help him move to his dorm at Oxford and he was gone. All of his things had been disturbed."

"And you dont think that he just left."

"Obviously. I know exactly how he keeps his room. He developed obsessive compulsive disorder-"

"After he witnessed his parent's murder, I'm guessing?"

"Yes." She replied.

"Oh come now, how could you have possibly known that?" John asked.

"Isn't it obvious? She said that she's the sole heir to the family business. No siblings. She was raised by another relative, most likely a grandparent. Could be an aunt or a family friend, but a grandparent is statistically more likely. Actually, it's definitely a grandparent; her posture says strict catholic school even though she's protestant."

"How can you tell?" She asked, quite intrigued by that deduction.

"Almost all devout Catholics have some sort of mark or callus on their knees from the kneelers in church. You lack this mark, so you are either protestant, or you aren't a christian at all. Cross bracelet tells me that you;re christian, so I went with the most likely scenario." Sherlock replied. "So, who would put you through a Catholic school even though you were protestant? Probably a stringent, religious grandmother, most likely the mothers side since I do recall that your paternal grandparents were dead before you were born. At least, that's what I found when I had a friend hack into the database where they kept the file. I've been touching base with your parent's case for a while, trying to figure it out in my spare time." Sherlock said. "But anyway, the locket around your neck is at least a hundred years old but yet it shows only around six years of continuous wear; your grandmother passed away six years ago, and that's when you knew you didn't have anyone left. So, you adopted a child, one who'd been through what you'd been through, and raised him until he was old enough to go to university. Am I wrong?"

"No." she replied. "My maternal grandparents were strict catholics, and my dad was protestant. Mum converted before they got married. I adopted my sun when I was twenty six, when he was twelve. His parents were murdered in front of him six months before I brought him into my home. We... we sort of fixed each other, you know? After he turned fourteen I started bringing other children in - orphans with special gifts or circumstances, you understand. If you include Ryan, I'm mother to five children."

"Going back to today." Sherlock said. "Why do you think your son was kidnapped? The police obviously dont."

"I was at a meeting with the CEO who's running the company for me, who gives me a substantial yearly allowance. I was trying to get it expanded so that the kids and I could live while the rest of the money went to Ryan, my son, for his college tuition and expenses."

"Oxford?" John asked.

"Yes." Sherlock rolled his eyes as she and John had a short conversation about tuition. "When I returned home, it was silent; it's never silent in my house. There's always a servant bustling around or the twins are yelling. I yelled upstairs for him, he always comes when I call. I looked for him all over, and then when I got to his room, everything was... off."

"Off? How?" John asked, scribbling everything down in a notebook.

"We all have coping systems when we deal with a trauma; mine was memorzing books." she replied. "Ryan's was developing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. He had to keep his room neat, obsessivly neat. Everything had its place: his books were color coded by author and by genre and his bed was made with surgical precision. Everything had to be just right, and none of the maids were allowed in the room. I memorized everything in the room in the exact way that he kept it. When I got into his room, everything was out of order. The pictures were turned the wrong way, his bookshelf didn't have an organizational system, and there was a nick in the wood where the bookshelves had hit the floor.

"'Course, none of the techs noticed that. The good side of the lamp was facing Northwest instead of southwest, his bed wasn't made with precise hospital corners, the dust under the dresser had been disturbed, the books on his bedside table weren't in the right order; it was little things. Ryan never would have left his room like that."

"Techs?" John asked.

"I called the police. They thought I was mad."

"And then someone gave you my address so that I could help you." Sherlock concluded. "Probably Lestrade."

"Yes, it was Lestrade." She looked at the ground. "Please, can you help me? Ryan's the closest thing I have to family. I need to find him." Sherlock took a deep breath, palms and fingers placed together under his chin. "I'm willing to pay you anything." He glanced up at her.

"I require nothing for my services except a problem and the way to find the solution." Sherlock said quietly.

"But I do." John said. "A thousand dollars, plus insurance for any possession of mine that might break."

"Are you sure you don't want more? I'm worth well over six billion dollars, Doctor Watson." she replied. " And don't ask me how I figured it out that you're a doctor. You knew exactly where to look for signs of former pregnancy and you sewed up your sweater with a suture." She said.

"Not exactly a difficult deduction." Sherlock muttered. She sighed, pulling her arms around herself.

"Please." She said with her voice wavering. His eyes raked over her.

_Damaged_. his mind whirled as he learned everything about her in a second. _strict upbringing_. _Desperate_. _Intelligent_. _Good memory. Broke wrist more than once. Former gymnast. Dog lover. Foster mother. Slight OCD. Memory of an elephant. Not natural Hairline. Never been kissed. _He lingered there, not sure what to do with that information, before he pressed on. _Thirty-two. Worrier. Habitual gum chewer. Socialite. Overly attached to her family. Very logical. Size seven. Ambidextrous. High arched feet. Spends hours typing. Writer. Slightly near sighted._

Sherlock sighed, but he didn't get anything about her that told him that she was crazy, or that she was a liar.

"Interesting." He said. "Very interesting." He sat back in his chair, placing his hands under his chin. "I'll take the case." She nearly leaped out of her seat to embrace him, but thought better of it. "I'd like to see the crime scene, please." Sherlock continued with almost too much enthusiasm.

"Of course." She picked up her coat, and John politely helped her into it. Sherlock had already wrapped his scarf around his neck by the time she had buttoned the jacket.

"What? You're going now?" John asked.

"Well, I can't just sit around when there's something fun going on!" Sherlock said. Clara didn't comment; she knew that it wasn't worth it. She had wormed her way through enough political games to know when something was worth saying.

"Follow. Are you joining us, Dr. Watson?" She asked,but the doctor just pulled on his coat as Sherlock hurried her down the stairs and out of the flat.

"Taxi!" Clara cried, stopping the cab in it's tracks as all of them clambered inside.

"Where to?"

"4978 Evangeline street, Belgravia." she replied. "Get us there in fifteen minutes and I'll pay you quadruple the fare."

"Yes ma'am." The cabbie said gleefully.

"I'll have one of the maids put the kettle on." Clara said, pulling out her mobile phone and texting Herbert faster than lightning.

"Who else lives in the home?" Sherlock asked.

"Besides Ryan and I, there's Mary-Kate, the twins Karen and Katherine, little Julie, the butler, Herbert, our live-in therapist, Susan, and the maids who switch from time to time. Right now, I think it's Marilyn, Sadie, and Elise."

"Why the live in therapist?" John asked.

"I take in... Special children. Ones that have gifts, the ones that people don't want because their too old, the kids that have gone through huge traumas. Most of them need some sort of therapy."

"Gifted?" Sherlock asked. She shrugged in response.

"Some say that they're freaks. One's a psychic medium, and the twins are child prodigies in math and science. The new child that I'm in the process of adopting has early manifestations of pyromania."

"Oh, that's a fabulous idea." Sherlock said sarcastically. "Considering you live in a Victorian Mansion."

"Alright, how could you possibly have known that?" John asked.

"Well, there's the fact that her clothes smell like wood - cedar, in fact, so she has a cedar closet. You would need a very large house if you were to have one, and you're ridiculously wealthy- your coat and bag are both prototypes of Louis Vuitton. Large house, expensive, clearly a mansion. Then, there's the fact that you gave the cabbie your address. House number indicates that you live in the older district of Belgravia. That particular district is famous for it's houses built under the reign of Queen Victoria. So, Victorian Mansion. Obvious." Sherlock said.

"Fantastic!" She replied, overjoyed by the incredible talents of Sherlock.

"Don't make his ego larger, Ms. Evangeline."

"It's Clara." She replied, sending a look at John..

"How long has he been missing?" Sherlock asked.

"Officially, four hours." She said.

"Fresh crime scene?"

"Nothing was disturbed." she said. "The police looked for fingerprints, but they didn't find anything."

"The kidnappers were organized. They weren't counting-"

"They?" she asked.

"Obviously." he replied. "They weren't counting on you remembering exactly where everything was supposed to be. And they weren't counting on you hiring me." Sherlock smirked. She smirked back, appreciating his bluntness. That was very rare and refreshing in her world of lies and scandals.

"Clearly. Driver, watch for that pothole." She said, and he swerved to miss it. Sherlock was surprised; she was sitting in the seat that faced away from their destination.

"How did you know about the pothole?" she shrugged.

"I ran over it a year ago. I haven't been to this section of London for some time, and that was when I brought my youngest home." She said, crossing her legs.

"You remember that?" Sherlock asked, surprised.

"Yes. Just like I remember the exact orientation of your flat." She went on to rattle on about the exact cardinal direction of the windows in the sitting room, the titles of all the books on the bookshelves in order, the exact amount of space between certain items, and how the skull on the mantelpiece was obviously a male that died from blunt force trauma, because of the prominent brow bone, jaw bone, and the obviously fixed bone fragments in the left side of the cranium." Sherlock was somewhat baffled. He had underestimated her memory, and he realized that she could be rather useful in future cases.

"Interesting." He mused, hands becoming steeples one again. "Very interesting."

_Good memory_. He thought. _Long memory. Detailed memory. _**_Brilliantly_**_ detailed memory_. He straightened up a little bit.

**_Elephant's_**_ memory._


End file.
